Archived: Knights Templar Court

The registered manager who was responsible for the home left the provider’s employment in December 2015. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run. A new manager was recruited in December 2015 and has begun the registration process with us.

This inspection took place on 24 and 30 March 2016 and was unannounced.

Staff understood people's needs and provided the care and support they needed. People said the home was a safe place. One person said “Yes, I do feel safe here.”

People were happy with the care they received. There were organised activities and people were able to choose to socialise or spend time alone. People liked the meals served in the home; mealtimes needed better organisation.

People interacted well with staff and spoke highly of them. One person said “All the care staff are very good, really nice friendly people.” There was a relaxed, homely atmosphere. There was laughter and chatter. People made choices about their day to day lives.

People received good support from health and social care professionals. Staff had built trusting relationships with people. People nearing the end of their lives received kind and compassionate care.

People, and those close to them, were involved in planning and reviewing their care and support. There was good communication with people's relatives. Relatives visited regularly, felt involved and said their views were listened to and acted on. One relative said “They always ask if you are happy with everything.”

Staff spoke highly of the care they were able to provide to people. One staff member said “I think we give people the care they need. People and their families seem happy.”

People liked and trusted the manager. All staff worked hard to provide a good level of care to people. The aims of the service were well defined and adopted by the staff team.

There were quality assurance processes in place to monitor care and safety and plan ongoing improvements but these were not fully effective. Some record keeping, such as accidents and incidents, needed improving. There were systems in place to share information and seek people's views about their care and the running of the home.

We found four breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. This was because medicine administration records were not always accurate and checks were not always completed to ensure medicines were still safe to use. People did not always have their legal rights protected when making decisions. Staff were not supervised in line with the provider’s policy and the provider’s quality assurance systems were not fully effective.

We found one breach of The Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009. This was because some significant events which had occurred in the home had not been reported in line with legal requirements. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

During this inspection, we found that the provider had taken appropriate action to comply with the regulation. Staff training and discussions had been completed about importance of care records and every person's care records had been re-written and contained current and accurate information.

People were cared for in a clean and hygienic environment and there were appropriate systems in operation designed to prevent, detect and control the spread of health care associated infections.

There were not always enough staff on duty to meet people's needs.

People's records did not always contain accurate and appropriate information.

Medicines were managed safely. One person told us, 'My medication always comes at a regular time.' Another person said, 'If I ask them what the tablets are for they tell me. They don't always look the same, but that's because they change the manufacturer.'

Appropriate checks were undertaken before staff were employed by the service.

The provider had a system to seek people's views and experiences of the service and analysed incident data.

People's care records did not always contain accurate or sufficient information to protect them from the risks of unsafe care.

We saw that accurate assessments of people's care needs were not always made and plans to meet people's needs were not always present. Medication was not always stored securely and medication records were not always completed accurately.

Staff were supported to provide care. The provider did not have an effective system to monitor the quality of service provision.